Conservation & Environment

Washington County is lucky to have a wealth of natural beauty within its borders, and even luckier to have nearly a dozen organizations who have made it their mission to preserve, maintain, and restore these crucial resources.

Impact

• Washington County, Pennsylvania has 857.0 square miles of land area and 3.9 square miles of water. It is the 18th largest county in Pennsylvania by total area. Washington County sits entirely within the Western Allegheny Plateau section of the Appalachian Forest ecoregion and is home to more than 3,000 different species of flora and fauna. - iNaturalist.org, Pennsylvania Master Naturalist, U.S. Census Bureau
• Washington County’s Greenways Plan is dedicated to the conservation of open space, parks and recreation, and natural areas in the county. Future updates to the plan include trail expansions and surface improvements. - Washington County Planning Commission
• Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership reports that in 2018, an 8-year plan to plant 10 million trees across Pennsylvania was launched. As of 2024, nearly 6 million trees have been planted, 990 of which are within Washington County.
  

Challenges

The lack of a countywide recycling center and recycling programs in many municipalities often force people to throw away items that could be recycled, or lead to dumping of materials such as tires along the side of the road. While clean-up and recycling events attempt to mitigate these issues as much as they can, many people remain unaware that these opportunities exist or discover they occurred after the fact.

Preserving and restoring green spaces has also been a concern, with new developments often crowding into land once set aside for farms and parks. Both Highland Ridge Community Development Corp and Firefly Gardens are attempting to bring some of these natural spaces back into the heart of Washington, planting vegetables and flowers for the benefit of the community at large and inviting open participation.